A cupcake decorated with marzipan roses.
A cake decorator is a skilled professional who can transform an ordinary cake into a fantasy of color and design. Able to create anything from realistic flowers to giant animal cakes, cake decorators are the artists of the cake world. For many, becoming a cake decorator combines two fantastic passions: a love of sweets and a love of art.
Training as a cake decorator can be quite serious and rigid, or casual and self-determined. Cake decorating is often an important part of pastry chef training programs, found at cooking schools and culinary institutes. Many formal pastry chef programs take years to complete and result in diplomas and certificates of completion. For the home baker, craft stores, kitchen stores, and community colleges often offer cake decorating classes for all levels. Whether it’s learning how to make flower petals or embarking on a wedding cake for 200 people, there are sure to be classes, books, and even websites that can be of great help to a decorator.
Cake decorators specialize in icing cakes.
A cake decorator may or may not work as a baker. While most can certainly follow a recipe, decorators often specialize in coating and decorating cakes rather than putting them together. Whether or not the decorator does the cake, taste is obviously just as important as sophisticated design. If the cake doesn’t taste wonderful, it probably doesn’t matter how good it turns out. For this reason, many decorators partner with talented bakers or pastry chefs if they don’t bake their wares.
Cake decorators are the artists of the cake world.
The first step in decorating most cakes is to establish a basic level of icing or icing. This can be done with a smooth icing, like buttercream, or a firm icing like fondant. Buttercreams tend to give a more uneven but textured finish, while rolled fondant or chocolate can give a cake decorator a perfectly smooth canvas that they are perfect to work with.
After the initial layer of frosting or icing is set, decoration can be added. A cake decorator can icing on designs and create figures and shapes with icing, chocolate, fondant, or even candies and fruit. Layered cakes can be created by stacking cake layers or balancing cakes on separate tiers and stands. Cakes in the form of items and animals can be cemented with supports, cut into the correct shapes and built up with additional layers. Half mason, half artist, a decorator’s skill can only be limited by his imagination.
Some cake decorators specialize in creating beautiful wedding cakes.
A cake decorator may choose to specialize in a single type or style of cake decorating. Some choose to focus solely on wedding cakes, which can be immensely elaborate and enormous in size. Others advertise their ability to make fantastic, whimsical cakes to suit any theme or need. An established decorator may choose to take orders based on what he wants to work on, much like an artist doing work to order. If you’re a home baker who’s proven your decorating skills, prepare to be bombarded by friends and family begging for special requests.